Run to the Hills! - Jason's Completely Stalled Colorado GTFO Build

Not the Leinenkugels!

That being said, Upslope Tea Shandy is my new favorite summer/fishing beer.

 

I’ll have to check that one out! Upslope has a lot of really good beers.

 

Still a lot left to do, but this is where she lives now!

 

Progress.

 

Got myself a new toy!

My work was going to get rid of it, so I snagged it from them for $free.fiddy! It works just fine, but it does need a little love.

 

Score!!! I want a bandsaw.

 

Right? I'd take a free band saw any day.

 

That's a cool little tool to have. Wish I had one but no space so I went with a chop saw.

 

I know it’s not Tacoma related, but it’s a pretty big deal for me. Last weekend I finally got my Jeep out to Colorado and with me where it belongs. After my divorce, the damn thing has just sat in a storage unit back in Utah for the last five years. A lot has changed since that shitty part of my life, and I’m pretty fortunate to have this place of my own now that has a perfect parking spot for her. There’s definitely a lot of sentimental value tied up in that thing, seeing as though I’ve had it for over 20 years.

Thankfully, my dad has been taking care of it and, being retired, he had the time to help me get everything packed up, finally cancel that storage unit, and trailer it out here behind his truck. It was a good trip with good weather the whole way, including over the passes, and it was an awesome time spent with my pops.













I also had some time to get a few more things done in the shop, including a little bit of decor... (I still have enough ‘beer art’ to likely cover at least the top two rows of the garage door ).

 

Dude so stoked to see the jeep back in your new home! I bet you are so happy to be able to see it everyday again.

 

Thanks, Mike! It’s been a long time coming. I don’t want it to divert from the truck too much, but I do have ideas for where I would like it to be down the road. And to be honest, I’ve learned so much from wrenching on the truck that will apply directly to the Jeep. It’s kinda of amazing how little I knew back then

 

The latest truck project is actually more of a shop project.

I’ve been wanting to store my RTT on the ceiling and I was actually going to try to design a hoisting system myself to raise it off of the bed rack. But I found

$213 HARKEN - Truck Cap Overhead Garage Storage Hoist, Self-Leveling, Safe Anti-Drop System, Easy One-Person Operation, Smart Garage Organization

this rigging system on Amazon that wasn’t too pricey and would do exactly what I needed. So rather than reinvent the wheel, I just hit the Buy It Now button and it showed up a few days later.

Installation was super easy and I couldn’t be happier with the operation of the hoisting system. It uses a 3-pass block and tackle, so it provides an 8X mechanical advantage which makes raising and lowering our beast of a tent a piece of cake. Two 500 lb ratchet straps hooked to separate eye bolts actually pull the tent home the last couple inches and secure it for storage.

The bed rack is going to be semi-permanently mounted to the truck. I really kinda dig the look with it on there by itself, and eventually I’ll have some additional EAF lighting mounted to it, so it just makes sense to leave it there most of the time. Most importantly, this all will let me leave the tent off the truck for any local wheeling trips and easily get it back on the truck as needed for overnight trips.

 

I should order this for the future. I currently used a chain hoist with 4 straps and 2 2x4's under the tent. I don't have a drywalled ceiling so it worked well. But I like this idea better, and not too pricey

 

That's cool, I always wanted a CJ5. I had a yj and a 1944 willys MB, I miss the yj for tooling around in the street door less on nice spring and fall days. The tacoma is still better offroad!!

Sweet shop mods, that's next on my list of stuff to do this summer.

 

As nerdy as I can be, I really wanted to try to engineer something from scratch, but this just made too much sense for the price. Time will tell how well it works over the long haul, but I like it a lot so far. The most time-consuming part of the install was just measuring and marking everything and double checking before doing the drilling. Easy peasy after that.

Thanks, man!

That’s super cool that you had an MB. Those things are so rare. Jeeps are definitely fun in their own way, but mine will never be the primary rig or project for me. It has a ton of sentimental value and while I do want to improve it, that will be a long slow process... I still want to build a regular cab Taco as a full on axle-swapped crawler someday

I’m looking forward to your shop mods! What do you have on your project list?

 

I want a reg cab as well, those are so cool!!

Organization mainly, too much crap on the floor taking up space, so looking at building shelving, racks and some steel/wood storage.

 

needs more room for truck less for weights

 

Yeah, organization is an ongoing thing, for sure.

I’m about to get some more shelving for truck parts and I’m planning on stealing a design from the garage shop thread for a wall storage rack for my fifteen pairs of jack stands I swear the damn things have been multiplying

 

Haha well the sad thing is that I don’t even look like I lift anymore Trying to work on that now...

But having this place to work out in and still have plenty of room to wrench has been a dream come true. I’ve seriously wanted this my whole adult life.

Can’t wait to get the office/studio/man cave part done, though. That’s the real icing on the cake

 

My issue is shit that just multiplies and accumulates along the perimeter floor of the garage. I was pondering yesterday and I have an opportunity to put veritcal shelving in each corner of the garage going up to the ceiling as thats dead space with either a lawnmower, welder, recycle bin, or air compressor tucked in those 4 corners. Make a space at the bottom for that stuff and stack up to the ceiling on shelves over it.